“Maybe Mrs. Randolph meant these clothes for me.” Ellen walked over to the bag and opened it. “I can wear anything he can.”
Sarah began taking out things they would need for bed. “She said she regretted not having anything to give you.”
“Then why did she give me this?”
Sarah turned to see her daughter holding up a dress that was clearly meant for a woman, not a child.
“There are more of them,” Ellen announced.
Sarah tossed aside the nightgown she was holding and took the bag. Inside were two more dresses. Rose had given her some of her own clothes.
“Are they for me?” Ellen asked.
“No,” Sarah said.
“Good. I don’t want any dresses.”
Neither did Sarah. Rose hadn’t told her what she was doing, because she probably guessed Sarah wouldn’t accept them. This wasn’t Salty’s fault, but it just added to her grievances. Was everybody determined to show her just how badly she’d managed her life since her husband deserted her? She was caught between appreciation for Rose’s kindness and impotent rage at her own helplessness.
“Can you get ready for bed on your own?” she asked her daughter.
“I’m not a baby, Mama.”
Of course she wasn’t. It was proof of how upset Sarah was that she had forgotten Ellen had gotten herself ready for bed all year. “Good. I have to talk to Salty.”
Ellen jumped up on the bed. “I’m glad you married him. I’ve never been in a hotel before.”
Sarah burned to say there were many things more important than staying in hotels, but Ellen was seven and things like that made a big impression on her. “I’m glad you like him.”
“So does Jared.”
So did that waitress and the old man. So did everybody. Why was it everything worked for Salty but not for her? “See if Jared needs any help, and tell Salty I want to talk to him.”
Leave it to children to sense what you were trying to hide from them. “Is anything wrong?” Ellen asked.
“We just need to talk over some things. Now, hurry. We need to get to bed because we have a long day tomorrow.”
Uncharacteristically, Ellen left with dragging feet. She must have sensed that her mother was unhappy with Salty and was reluctant to carry the message. What had she done?
Sarah tossed the dress aside. She hadn’t asked for it and didn’t want it. She wasn’t helpless, was she? Yes. Even worse, she was inadequate. She’d had to marry a man to do all the things she was unable to do. That he seemed to do everything effortlessly just made her failure seem worse.
She heard a knock at the door. “It’s Salty. Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
She had expected her frustration to burst forth from her and bury him, but when she started to speak she didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t accuse him of trying to make her feel useless or of trying to steal her children’s affection; she was sure he was only doing what he thought would help—which was why she’d married him. Yet she couldn’t stay quiet or she’d snap. “We need to talk.”
“What about?”
“About everything.”
She wished she knew what was hiding behind that limpid gaze. A lot more than Salty let on. He gave the appearance of being easygoing and content, but his eagerness to have some land of his own, his disappointment when she said he didn’t fit her requirements, and his shock when she chose him, were all signs of a deeper well of emotion he kept out of sight. Just as indicative was the connection he’d made with Jared. He had managed to make her son feel he understood the limitations of that withered leg, but that those limitations didn’t in any way affect his estimation of Jared as a person. No one but she and Ellen had ever been able to do that.
“In that case we’d better sit down. Do you want the chair or the bed?”
“I’ll take the bed.”
But she felt silly perched there, preparing to have a formal conversation with a man she’d married that morning. Everything was out of kilter. She wondered if her life would ever feel normal again.
“I’m feeling left out of all the decision-making. I know it’s your money you’re spending, but it’s my family you’re spending it on and I don’t understand why. I know this sounds ungrateful, but I’m not sure I want it.”
“Is that all?”
Is that all? His response was so unexpected she wasn’t sure how to respond. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I thought something important was worrying you.” He started to rise. “We have a long day tomorrow. I’d better—”
“Something important is worrying me.”
He sat back down. “What?”
“I feel like I’m losing control of my life.” That sounded a little like a child whining. “You’re making all the decisions. I either have to agree or sound like an ogre.” That sounded petty and ungrateful. “What I’m trying to say is, you’re making decisions without consulting me. I’m not saying I disagree with them, but when they involve me and my children, I want to be consulted.”
“Since I’m your husband now, everything I do will involve you and the children.”
“Then I want to be consulted about everything.”
Salty’s gaze narrowed. “I was under the impression that you wanted me to stay as far away from you as possible.” He averted his gaze. “You felt your attraction to me could be a problem.”
She felt heat rush up her neck and suffuse her face. “I don’t see how that applies.”
“If I’m to discuss everything with you that involves the ranch or the children, as well as work with you, we’re going to be spending most of our time together.” His gaze met hers. “It’s possible that being around me that much would end any attraction you feel. However, it’s possible the reverse might happen.”
Not if she continued to be as irritated with him as she was now. “I admit that I find you attractive, but since my desire to be consulted about everything involving my family is greater than my attraction to you, I don’t think that will be a problem.”
She wished Salty wasn’t so good at keeping his emotions from being reflected in his face. Even his eyes, usually the window to a person’s inner thoughts, gave nothing away. Maybe this was part of his plan to kill her attraction for him.
If so, it wasn’t working. She was more intrigued than ever. He was good, kind, generous, fun to be around, and her children liked him. He was dependable, capable, and utterly truthful. There was nothing to dislike about him. And like any woman, she was intrigued by what she couldn’t figure out. Furthermore, she was convinced there was some sadness in his past that still affected him. She had a feeling his cheerfulness was partly camouflage to keep people from sensing that hurt. Like so many men, he’d chosen to bury his pain rather than bring it to the surface.
Salty stood. “I’ll do my best to remember to consult you before I make any more decisions. If I forget, remind me. I’m used to being on my own.”
That was a strange thing to say, since he’d been working for the Randolph family, but she didn’t challenge it. She’d already let herself become too curious about him. But she couldn’t let him leave with nothing but complaints ringing in his ears. “I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done. You’ve more than lived up to your part of the bargain so far. I’m sure you’ll continue to do so. I just want to be included.”
“I understand,” he said. “Now I’d better go. Jared has some ideas about the ranch he wants to tell me.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean Ellen?”
Salty flashed her an amused smile. “Ellen already told me what she thinks we ought to do. Jared has ideas, too, but he’s afraid they won’t be taken seriously because his leg has kept him from knowing as much as Ellen.”
Sarah wondered what she’d done to make Jared think she wouldn’t listen to
him. “What does he want to talk about?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then how exactly do you know he wants to talk?”
Salty smiled. “Every seven-year-old boy wants to talk. They’re so full of discoveries they’re spilling over with things to say. I suspect Jared feels it’s hard to be listened to when he’s with you. I saw it in his eyes when we were talking about the ranch.”
“So you don’t know he wants to talk.”
“No, but I’ve got a feeling he does. I learned from George Randolph never to ignore my feelings. They won’t go away, so ignoring them just makes it harder to get to where you’re supposed to be.”
Sarah couldn’t shake the feeling Salty was talking about her, but he didn’t know what it was like to be married to Roger. No attraction was worth that, no feeling powerful enough to make her change her mind. She knew where she wanted to be. She intended to get there with Salty’s help, and then she would divorce him.
* * *
“Mama likes you.”
Salty turned from where he’d been putting things back into his bedroll. Jared was sitting up in bed, watching him with an eagerness that told him there had been too few men in his life he could trust.
“What makes you say that?” He wasn’t asking because he wanted to know what Sarah thought about him; he already knew that. He wanted to know what Jared was thinking.
“She lets you do things.”
That was a little too vague for Salty. “What things?”
“She never let us stay in a hotel before. We never ate in a restaurant, either.”
“I paid for both.”
“I know. I don’t think we have any money. Does that mean we’re poor?”
“You’re not poor, because you have a ranch.”
“I heard Arnie—he’s the last man Mama hired—say the bank was going to take our ranch if she fired him.”
“What did your mother say?” Salty asked.
“She said if Arnie didn’t pack his bags and leave within the hour, she’d set the sheriff on him.”
That sounded like Sarah Winborne: gutsy even when she didn’t have a leg to stand on.
“I was glad he left. I didn’t like him.”
“Why?”
“He wanted Mama to marry him. He said he’d make the ranch profitable if she did.”
“Why didn’t she marry him?”
“She didn’t like him. Ellen did, but I didn’t.”
“Why did Ellen like him?”
“Arnie let her do things Mama said were dangerous for a girl, even a girl like Ellen.”
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
“That’s what Mama said. I think he must have been right about the bank. That’s why Mama married you.”
Salty was surprised she would discuss something like this with two seven-year-olds. “Did she say that?”
“She said we didn’t have enough money to pay a man to work for us. She said she would have to marry again, but she was going to divorce him as soon as she could pay the money she owed the bank.”
Apparently Salty had underestimated the ability of seven-year-olds. Jared had no difficulty understanding the situation.
“Why wouldn’t you want your mother’s husband to be your father?”
“I wouldn’t want Arnie, but I wouldn’t mind you.”
The conversation was moving along lines Salty hadn’t anticipated. It was time he got to bed.
He hadn’t shared a bed with a seven-year-old since he was a child himself, but he figured Jared would fall asleep within minutes after he blew out the lamp. He stripped down to his long underwear and admitted, “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be anybody’s father. But if I was, you’d be my first choice for a son.”
“Why would you want a cripple for a son?”
Salty was about to blow out the lamp, but he figured this was one question that needed to be answered in the light. He sat down on the edge of the bed and turned to face Jared. The boy didn’t look upset. Just curious. That said a lot for Sarah’s determination to help Jared think of his leg as a simple problem that could be dealt with, not something that made him a lesser person. Salty was glad of that.
“There’s a lot about you that’s more important than your leg. I know that must be hard to believe sometimes, especially when it keeps you from doing things other boys can do, but it’s who you are inside that makes me say I’d be proud to be your father.” Jared had probably heard that so often he had started to think of it as an excuse people used when they couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’m not going to tell you that your leg won’t make life harder for you. It will. I’m not going to tell you it won’t keep you from doing things you want to do. You already know that. Nor am I going to tell you that people won’t think less of you because of it. You know that, too.”
“Then how could you be proud to be my father?”
It was time to share a bit of himself. Salty didn’t want to revisit the past, but he would if it could help Jared. “My father was a big, powerful man. There wasn’t much he couldn’t do. People used to brag on him, come to see him lift some log or bend iron with his bare hands. He was disappointed in me because I took after my mother’s side of the family. She was so slender I used to be afraid she would break when my father wrapped his big arms around her.”
“Were your brothers big like your father?”
“I didn’t have any brothers, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”
“What was?”
“There was an accident. My mother died, and my father was paralyzed.” Salty felt his throat tighten at the memory of the pain he’d suffered at losing his mother. “From that day until he died, he was so bitter that he made everybody around him miserable. He was still a strong man, but he used his strength to break things when he was in a rage. He blamed me for the accident because if I’d been home when I should have been, I would have taken my mother to church instead of him. It didn’t matter that he’d been angry and driven his buggy too fast on a slick road. It didn’t matter that he’d taken a green horse instead of waiting until I got home with the older one.”
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Jared said.
Salty sighed. “What I find so great about you is that you have the most positive attitude of any boy I’ve ever known. You don’t blame anyone for what happened to you. You’re not even angry about it.”
Jared’s head dropped. “I am sometimes.”
“That’s natural…but you don’t let it get you down. You don’t really resent that your sister can do things you can’t. You don’t whine or expect special attention. Instead, you look for things you can do.”
“Mama says I do lots of things to help.”
“I’m sure you do,” Salty agreed. “And as you get older, there’ll be more ways you can help. There are jobs where having a withered leg won’t stop you from being successful.”
“Is that man we saw at the Randolph ranch successful? He didn’t look happy.”
Salty paused. “Jeff is very good with money, but he lets his bitterness keep him from enjoying his success and accepting his family’s love.”
“They looked mad at him,” Jared pointed out.
“Sometimes he’s so mean they get angry and strike back, but they do love him.”
“I’d never be mean to Ellen. She beat up a boy who made fun of my leg.”
Salty would like to have seen that. The boy would probably never live down having been bested by a girl. “You wouldn’t be mean to anyone.”
“I would if they did something to Mama or Ellen. I don’t care if that’s wrong.”
Salty reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. “It’s all right to defend your family, just like it was all right for Ellen to defend you. Jeff’s brothers would do the same for him, even when he makes them so ang
ry sometimes they want to knock him down.”
Jared thought about this. “I can’t knock anybody down. I can’t even stand up without holding on to something.”
“That’s okay. You tell me if you have anybody who needs knocking down.” Salty flourished his fists in a parody of a fight. “I’m rather handy with these.”
Jared laughed. “You can’t knock down little boys!”
“I can dunk their heads in a horse trough.”
Jared got serious. “Would you really do that?”
“Your mother and I are married, so everybody will expect me to take care of you and your sister. A good dunking never hurt anybody, and maybe it would make them think twice before doing things to hurt people.”
Salty decided they’d better stop before Jared thought up something else to ask. He didn’t know whether Sarah would be angry that he’d shared such a personal talk with her son, but how could he consult her beforehand when he had no idea what Jared was going to say next? The ground would be even more treacherous with Ellen. People had all kinds of ideas about what could be said or done around little girls. He needed to tell Sarah what he and Jared had talked about, to make sure she understood that he couldn’t anticipate what either child would ask. More than that, he needed to know how much latitude she would give him.
“We’d better get to sleep,” he said to Jared. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
“Will you let me handle the reins?”
He couldn’t answer that without talking to Sarah, yet if he didn’t answer now, Jared would think he was evading and stop confiding in him. “I’ll have to talk to your mother first. She knows more about what you can do than I do.”
“Mama says I’m too young, but I’m not. Besides, I can drive a cart even though I have a useless leg.”
Salty agreed with the boy, but this was something he couldn’t decide on his own. “I’ll talk to your mother. If it’s all right with her, I’ll start teaching you how to handle the reins. Now go to sleep before you ask me something else that’s going to get me in trouble.”
No One But You Page 11